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I will add more to this later, but here is the sad announcement from Miami Herald, and the section from my Rum book on him and Barbancourt.

It was evening that I made my attempt along the traffic-clogged Route Nationale Une. To the usual dust, potholes and chaotic traffic were added another problem. Towards sunset is funeral time. Three separate corteges held up the traffic. One hearse had broken down, and was being pushed. Another was creaking along just behind, while at the economy funeral bringing up the rear the pink painted coffin was being born on the heads of the mourners who did not seem to mind that the shroud was poking out from the ill-secured lid. It did not bode well for the Haitian concept of quality control.

However, down a side road, past the goats grazing at the roadside and the pigs wallowing in the ditch, suddenly I hit the best paved piece of road in Haiti. It is for the heavy trucks that bring in 200 tons of sugar cane a day to the home of Rhum Barbancourt, as well as for the ox carts that bring in some of the small-holders’ crop. The cane has to be milled within twenty four hours and a ton of it gives about 70 bottles of rum – anything up to fifteen years after it is ground.

There, surrounded by the cane fields that supply it, the plant distills, ages and bottles what many people consider the best rum in the world. Barbancourt Estate Réserve, aged in oak for fifteen years to give it what its maker Thierry Gardère calls a “particularity,” that makes it comparable to an old cognac or single malt. Almost as good, and more easily available, is the mere Five Star eight year old.

Among its dedicated consumers are the Voodoo gods of Haiti, whose more upper class priests spray a mouthful into the air, before pouring a libation on the ground. And then the priests drink the stuff themselves – straight of course. Even those who only provide clairin will disguise it in a Barbancourt bottle, often decorated with gaudy beadwork as if to hide from the visiting spirits that the spirit is not the top quality.

Connoisseurs would like to think that anyone who put coke in this rum would suffer the terrible wrath of the whole Voodoo pantheon. The mere three star, aged four years could at a pinch be mixed without sacrilege but not the eight or fifteen year old.

M Gardère sniffed when I made at comparisons with a better known rum “Bacardi is very clever: they do not want you to drink their rums without a mixer to hide the taste.” Barbancourt, a premium rhum agricole, has picked up gold medals galore for its qualities, since the company was outward looking enough to send its products to the fairs and expositions of the world, especially in Paris. It goes without saying that Barbancourt is un rhum agricole.

Gardère also explains that the star on the label was, coincidentally, red, the color associated with the war god, Ogou. M. Gardère is not a devotee of Voodoo, but it is little short of a daily miracle that his factory survives and at all in a country with a two hundred year old history of political upheavals, where the telephones and power lines work only occasionally. Barbancourt can sell everything it produces – if it can actually receive the orders.
When I contacted its American importer before setting off he sighed that the only way they could maintain supplies was by keeping a big inventory. The telephones did not usually work.

Dupré Barbancourt started the company when he opened his distillery in 1862. The former slaves of Haiti had voted with their feet and machetes against attempts to restart the sugar plantations that fed the former French distilleries. The Barbancourts had come from the cognac producing areas of France. They moved to Haiti in the eighteenth century, and local legend has it that it was the quality of the rum the family made that preserved them from the massacres that accompanied the various slave uprising, invasions and civil wars in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

When Dupré Barbancourt died without children his widow, Nathalie Gardère Barbancourt, brought in her nephew, Paul Gardère to help her run the rhummerie. Now, the fourth generation keeper of the flame under the still is Thierry Gardère, the great-great-nephew of the original Barbancourt. The company is officially a partnership with five other family members, but they seem happy to leave him in charge to maintain the ancient traditions. Those are a rhum agricole, treble distilled and aged in white oak vats built with timber and carpenters both imported from the Limousin region of France that supplies the cognac industry. The oak is from standalone trees whose larger pores allow in more air to engender the mysterious alchemy of aging and maturation.
Many rum producers use barrels that have been pre-used for aging Bourbon. The Barbancourt 15 year old spends its last five years in old cognac barrels.

Of course, the families did come from France, so there have been Balzacian family feuds, as when a branch of the Barbancourt family tried to sell rum under their name. Gardère’s father sued, and Thierry chuckles reminiscently when he recounts the tale. When their advocate cited the relevant laws, the Judge declared that the law did not apply, since he declared “this is the Duvalierist revolution.” He asked for a bribe and when it was refused sent Gardère’s father and his lawyer to prison. Even Papa Doc thought this was little too much and ordered their release.

However, as one of the few legitimately profitable businesses in Haiti, the company again attracted the attention of Papa Doc who wanted to nationalize it. It was saved when Duvalier’s advisors suggested how much damage Haitian civil servants could do to a product that depended on rigorous quality control.

In fact, it was around that time that the company became a near monopoly anyway, not as a result of voodoo politics or anything else. “It was ice,” explains Gardère. “When you put water in some spirits, it brings out the fusel oil taste. You don’t smell it at higher proofs, so when they put ice in the other rums, it gave them a bad taste.” he explains.

Before 1949 the company bought the local hooch and then re-refined it to eliminate the more noxious hangover inducing alcohols. Then it began to make its own fresh from the vesous, the fermented sugar cane juice. Indeed the original copper column still is still bubbling away, siphoning off the less drinkable condensate. As a measure of its potency, they donated it to local hospitals for surgical spirit after a recent hurricane.

Now the rum is distilled in three columns, and the final product comes out as a highly volatile 90% alcohol, to which some 50% water is added before aging in oak vats. Gardère says, “We’ve modernized a lot, but we are trying not to do so too quickly. We want to go step by step so we do not lose too much of the original product. We want to go with the evolution of people’s taste.”

Although they add yeast, the slightly thinner than usual local cane has its own natural ferments, and the company is taking steps to buy more land to safeguard its supply, threatened by the spreading slums and sprawl of Port au Prince. However, they cannot totally protect themselves from the infrastructural chaos of the poorest country in the hemisphere. Jean-Mark Ewald, an engineer at the plant, comments sadly about this struggle against disentrepreneurial entropy, “There’s no way we can go ‘Just In Time’ when it comes to equipment and material that we need. We never know how much time it will take.” Recently they received a batch of chemicals for the labs that they had ordered a year before, most of which were stuck in the customs for a year. “Some of them were already out of date.”

Commenting on the difficulty of running a modern business without a telephone, Gardère smiles, “People keep stealing the lines. But thank God you don’t need a telephone for distillation.” However you do need to tie up a lot of capital if you are going to keep spirits aging and unsold. For example, four years of embargo by the United Nations cut off the 40% sales that would normally go to export between 1991 and 1995, but Gardère is philosophical. “We are not so desperate, because it meant that we have more aged rum to sell! So in the end we can have better sales.”

The secret of Barbancourt’s success over more artisan spirits is the dedication to quality control. Just the other side of the wall from the neighborhood’s grazing goats are its labs, with gas and liquid chromatography facilities. They have recently installed a cold filtration plant to anticipate another problem they had discovered. When the rum moves from its tropical home to colder northern markets, the tannins in the rum precipitate out. “No one’s complained about it yet, but we don’t like it,” says Ewald. In a country where even safe drinking water is rare, the plant uses osmosis and ozonization to ensure that they have soft, bacteria free water, both for the fermentation and dilution of the heady firewater that comes off the stills.

Gardère hoped that his 16-year-old daughter would one day become involved in the business but he senses a need for changes. “We want to expand the export market, which is why we need more aged rum and so we need more capital. We have another problem, what I call a positive problem; more people want to buy than we can sell. I’m not sure that the family will put so much in it, so we may have to look for new partners for finance.”

Meanwhile, as Barbancourt markets itself worldwide, taking advantage of globalization, the local clairin has been suffering. Christian preachers may well have inveighed against demon rum, but the local spirits like their local spirits. Voodoo and Santeria, Obeah, all the ancestral African deities acquired a taste for rum on their way across the Atlantic. Rum is a sacramental drink, a libation to the spirits and an inspiration to the worshippers. While Barbancourt is preferred, the cheaper sort of houngans use clairin to summon the Gods of the Voodoo pantheon, and the ordinary sort of Haitians use it for escaping this world in other ways.

In fact, in the archaeology of alcohol, you can probably recreate the taste of the old kill-devil by taking a drink of clairin. You can get some sense of its subtlety from the protests by Haitian peasant farmers a few years ago about the competition from imported medical ethanol, a flask of which they symbolically buried next to the Route Nationale.

Unscrupulous importers had been bringing in to the country to make faux clairin, under the banner of free trade and globalization. Like the native Zombies, one cannot but suspect that its time interred would be short! It is probably significant that one of the traditional uses of clairin is washing down the dead.

There is as yet no export market for it and one could not be sure that the FDA would favor its import into the USA.

The St Lucia Distillers group of companies has been acquired by Martinique-based Group Bernard Hayot, which owns two of Martinique’s top rum distilleries: Rhum Clement and Rhum JM.

“The acquisition of SLD brings together two established traditions of rum making – Rhum Agricole and molasses based – into one portfolio – See more at: http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/new-owner-of-st-lucia-distillers-to-implement-comprehensive-investment-programme/#sthash.kc93B1Xl.dpuf,” the companies said in a statement. “GBH intends to put in place a comprehensive investment programme for St Lucia Distiller’s production and warehousing facilities – See more at: http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/new-owner-of-st-lucia-distillers-to-implement-comprehensive-investment-programme/#sthash.kc93B1Xl.dpuf.”

St Lucia Distillers; 1931 rum was named Rum of the Year by Caribbean Journal in 2015.

The company’s rums include 1931 and Chairman’s Reserve, among others.

“I am excited and very happy that St Lucia Distillers has a new owner committed to further investment in our distillery and helping us build our brands both locally and internationally,” said Margaret Monplaisir, managing director of St Lucia Distillers. “We certainly have a bright future ahead and we are keen to begin working with our new owners. GBH also intends to use its considerable expertise to develop our tour at St Lucia Distillers making it a “must see” for visitors to St. Lucia, like they have done at Habitation Clement in Martinique.”

The latter has become one of the most creative distilleries in the region, now home to its own modern art museum.

In a statement, GBH Spirit Division Director Gregoire Gueden said the deal was a “a natural progression given the close proximity of Martinique to St. Lucia and the similarity of our heritage and cultures.”

of a vast historical cover-up? Ian Williams thinks so. A renowned journalist and rum expert, Williams is the author of the acclaimed book Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. It’s a riveting read. Taking us from the plantations of Barbados to the battlefields of Revolutionary New England, Williams argues that rum’s pivotal role in the American Revolution was written out of U.S. history because of prohibitionism. We asked him about the spirit’s troubling past:

HistoryBuff: Can you tell us a little about the origins of rum? When did it go mainstream?

Ian Williams: Rum is the mongrel progeny of mixed technical genes. It was first mentioned in Barbados in 1651 by a much-quoted anonymous writer who wrote that “the chief fudling they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devil, and this is made of sugar canes distilled, a hot, hellish and terrible liquor.” Originating in Papua New Guinea, the sugar cane travelled via India to the Middle East and was brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to the Americas. The British in Barbados imported the milling and refining technology from the coast of what is now Surinam when Dutch settlers were ousted by the Portuguese in Brazil and settled in Barbados, which rapidly became a sugar monoculture.

HB: How was it made?

IW: Rum was made from the by-product of sugar, the molasses and skimmings left once the sugar had been crystallised out. The natural yeasts in the air would have set the molasses solution bubbling and fermenting, but it produces an unpalatable and indigestible drink—until some unsung genius realised that distillation brought over the alcohol without the immediate intestinal upsets! It was a very ecological drink—using a waste product and not competing with food stocks.

HB: How did the spirit get its name?

IW: Originally known as “Kill-Devil,” the word rum seems to be derived from “rumbullion”—an English dialect word for “a commotion, a riot”—which is indicative of the effects! “Rhum” in French, Ron in Spanish and in other European languages all seem to be derived from the English word. But along the Eastern Seaboard of the US, features are often named after “Kill Devil.” The Wright brothers first flew near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina, for example.

The_Pirates_carrying_rum_on_shore_to_purchase_slaves
via Wikimedia

HB: When was it first popularized in the U.S.?

IW: Most of the American colonists were marginally productive of grain crops, so using grain for alcohol production was frowned upon. Apple crops allowed hard cider production but a gallon of imported molasses made a gallon of rum roughly, and from an early stage of colonial history, distilleries flourished. Rum was much more easily stored and transported and was often drunk in the form of punches rather than neat. And it killed the bacteria in the water!

HB: How much rum did the colonists really drink?

IW: The colonists drank huge quantities themselves but also traded it with the Indians, persuading them to hunt for furs beyond their own subsistence needs. Benjamin Franklin commented, “If it be the design of Providence to extirpate these Savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that Rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the Sea-Coast.” The colonists preferred Caribbean rum for themselves, but they also traded their locally produced New England rum for slaves in Africa, where it was the major trading item for the American ships. The British ships used cloth and other manufactured goods rather than rum.

HB: What role did rum play in the American Revolution?

IW: The original dispute was that while the British West Indian islands used their own molasses to make rum, the French colonies were not allowed to in case they competed with the domestic French Brandy industry—and so had a surplus of molasses from their sugar production. The American ships traded, salt, salted cod, and timber for this and since for much of the 18th-century France and Britain were at war—among other things about French threats to the colonies from Canada—this was trading with the enemy.

The colonists did not pay duty on the smuggled goods and later when the British tried to collect taxes to defray the cost of removing the French from Canada, the colonists first refused, then actively resisted as the British shifted the collection from easily intimidated or bribable local collectors to the Navy, whose Captains and crews collected prize money from any smugglers’ ships they caught. The conflict escalated. But they never asked for representation—they just did not want taxation!

Revere, Paul 1770
Paul Revere via Wikimedia

HB: Did Paul Revere really fortify himself with rum before galloping off for Lexington?

IW: The revolution was plotted in taverns over bowls of rum punch, and Paul Revere’s ride, far from rousing the countryside, was simply warning the Militia to hide their arsenals before a Redcoat raid. His first stop was with the owner of a rum distillery, Isaac Hall, Captain of the Medford Minute Men, who rewarded the messenger with several stirrup cups that “would have made a rabbit bite a bulldog,” and sent him bellowing on his way. During the war both sides tried to seize rum distilleries stores since it was assumed the troops would not fight without it. Faced with a severe shortage of rum George Washington wrote to Congress in 1777 suggesting “erecting Public Distilleries in different States.” He went on to explain, suggesting that even then he anticipated some resistance, “The benefits arising from the moderate use of strong Liquor, have been experienced in all Armies and are not to be disputed.”

HB: Why did whisky surpass rum as America’s beverage of choice?

IW: After the Revolution, the opening up of the former Indian territories allowed corn to replace the molasses and rum from the Caribbean. Although rum remained a major commodity in New England, whisky replaced it as a drink and as currency. The combined effects of that and prohibitionism submerged its role in American history.

HB: What most surprised you while you were writing the book?

IW: Once I had begun to look into the subject, I was delighted and surprised to see how much of a role rum had had in the development of the modern Atlantic world. I began to research when I realized that the Caribbean was for centuries the cockpit of European history. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans went there to fight and die for control of its liquid treasures and it was seminal in the American Revolution. Faced with the choice between Canada and Martinique—the French chose Martinique. The West Indian colonies would have joined the USA—and reinforced the Southern slaveowners if it weren’t that they needed the British to protect them against the French and Spanish.

Rum was a delight to research whether in the archives of London and New York—or the rum-shops of Barbados and Jamaica!

BARBADOS’ DISTINCTION of being the birthplace of rum is about to be “leveraged” like never before. Fresh from acquiring Mount Gay Rum Refinery and Mount Gay Plantation in St Lucy for a combined $28.7 million, French alcoholic beverage company Remy Cointreau has sanctioned a plan that will see its Barbados subsidiary, Mount Gay Distilleries Limited, giving consumers a taste of the world’s first “luxury” rum in six to seven year’s time.
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It is a key part of a deliberate strategy – fashioned four years ago – to elevate the 312-year-old Mount Gay brand to premium and super premium status, thereby ensuring its survival and growth.
Detailing the strategy in an interview with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY, Mount Gay Distilleries Limited managing director, Raphael Grisoni, revealed that the company would now be involved in producing its special new rum, which is targetting the high end market, from the field to the bottle.
Mount Gay has contracted the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) to manage Mount Gay Plantation, and is working with the Sugar Cane Breeding Station and a team of “specialist” consultants, including agronomists, to produce its own “high quality” molasses for the “single estate rum”, Grisoni said.
“We made a deal with BAMC, so they are grinding for us and we are collecting the molasses from them, which is segregated, so it is really our molasses coming from our plantation. The rum produced will be something very high end, very expensive, because it will be very scarce and of course the growing super premium rum market is there so it will be beneficial, of course, for Barbados to have such positioning,” he said.
“It’s the early stage. We took over the plantation, we got the first harvest and our molasses. It’s not a common molasses, we have a special quality, so we are extracting less sugar from the cane so we have a better quality molasses, and we started our first distillation last month. So it’s really fresh and the product will go out in six to seven years.
“On the plantation, there is an old plantation house and an old windmill. So slowly we are going to refresh that and make it nice. Today, all of the plantation management is externalised with BAMC but with our guidelines. We are expecting them to manage our plantation by the book, we want an exceptional management and thanks to our consultant agronomist, we set up the standard on which we want the BAMC to operate,” he added.
Grisoni said the expectation was that in the end Mount Gay would have a product “that will deliver because of the quality of the cane, and because of the processes we are going to use will be unique”.
He said there was a market of affluent consumers who were “looking for unique, scarce, small batch products”, and the company was looking to capitalise on this in an international marketplace where no one was currently selling true luxury rum for between US$500 and US$1 000 a bottle, except the occasional special edition.
“It is really something unique and I think this is the way we should go forward. It was also a way to show we believe in the sugar industry. Purchasing a plantation is already a sign that we believe in this industry and we are willing to invest and it’s a significant investment. This is just the beginning. What I know is that overall luxury products are on the rise,” he asserted.
“There are more and more rich people who are demanding exclusive products and we have all the attributes to deliver those luxury products and we need to leverage our heritage. We were born more than 300 years ago in this area in St. Lucy. This is our story and it was logical to build on that and I am totally convinced that there is a consumer for that.
“It’s great but it’s also difficult for us because it’s new. Before, we were really only in the distillation, aging and blending. Now we are becoming farmers, so as you can imagine it’s quite complex. But thanks to God, we have great specialists on the island, we have great agronomists who are, of course, helping us in order to do it properly.”
– See more at: http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/71435/remy-upscale-rum#sthash.9Z4qvpPi.dpuf

Be the first to discover new brands and new rum expressions entering the market.

Miami is the place where everyone in the rum category meets.

The 2015 Miami Rum Festival features a special Trade Exhibit Section, with many up-and-coming rum brands from around the world presenting never-before-seen rums in the United States.

Friday, April 17 from 3-6pm

Saturday, April 18 from 1-6pm

Sunday, April 19 from 1-6pm

Thousands of rum producers, importers, distributors, retailers, food and beverage managers, buyers, brokers, consultants and members of the spirit press will gather in Miami for this International Trade Exposition for Rum.

From the far reaches of the globe, rum producers will bring their finest products to meet with importers. Distributors will meet with retailers and beverage managers. Brands will meet with bottlers and label designers, corks and packaging specialists. The International Rum Expert Panel judges will be in attendance. Many new products will be on display for the trade to see, sample and discover.

Miami is the place where everyone in the rum category meets.

This modern, accessible gateway to the Caribbean region is the ideal setting to explore, plan and strategize the future success of rum. Don’t miss the most important global rum event in the world.

In order to restrict attendance to the Miami Rum Festival and International Trade Expo for Rum, tickets will not be sold at the door. Please register for your VIP Weekend Trade Pass in advance.

Are you a member of the spirits trade? A food and beverage manager or a bartender? A rum producer or a spirits journalist? Do you work at a liquor store or restaurant, caterer, distributor, importer or broker?

Register now for an exclusive VIP Weekend Trade Pass with complete access to all consumer and trade exhibits during the three day event.

MIAMI, FL — The fifth annual Miami Rum Renaissance Festival — the largest gathering of rum experts, professionals and enthusiasts in the world — will span Monday, April 15 to Sunday, April 21, 2013 at the Doubletree by Hilton Miami Airport Convention Center.

Last year, more than 8,000 rum enthusiasts attended the festival with 20,000 square feet of exhibit space. The new space spans 40,000 square feet, twice the size of last year’s event. Festival organizers are preparing for 15,000 attendees.

In addition to a week-long series of VIP parties, tasting sessions and celebrity seminars, the rum festival brings together members of the esteemed International Rum Expert Panel (RumXPs) for their annual tasting competition.

Two full days of Grand Tasting events for the public will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 20 and 21. More than 240 spirits from the Caribbean and beyond will be available for sampling, along with a selection of island-style cuisine.

New this year is a half-day exhibit session exclusively for the beverage trade on Friday, April 19. Liquor store buyers, food and beverage managers, bartenders and other spirits trade professionals will be invited to attend.

The Miami Rum Renaissance Festival attracts cane spirit products and brands from all over the globe. Companies large and small will be on hand to present their rums to a global gathering of experts, reporters, critics and consumers.

South Florida is regarded as the number one rum market in the world, with a high percentage of rum enthusiasts, liquor stores, bars and restaurants offering both popular and top-shelf luxury rum products to consumers.

According to event manager Robin Burr, the Miami Rum Fest has doubled in size each year, a testament to the fact that consumer interest in sugar cane spirits is growing faster than any other category of liquor.

“We’re proud to say that our prediction of rum’s resurgence in popularity was on the money,” said Robert A. Burr, festival organizer and publisher of Rob’s Rum Guide. “An incredible range of fine rums, from casual and fun mixers to luxurious top-shelf sipping rums will be on display. There is no better opportunity for the rum enthusiast to sample such a vast selection of spirits in one place.”
Rum lovers can choose between $50 day passes to the grand tasting events and $65 VIP tickets that allow early access to the exhibits and complimentary tickets to the celebrity seminars. VIP ticket holders also enjoy access to a private area featuring complimentary cuisine and VIP cocktails.

For those that wish to participate in the entire week of VIP special opportunities, a $250 Executive VIP pass grants admission to all events.

caption:
With a week-long series of special events, the 2013 Miami Rum Festival, featuring the RumXP Tasting Competition, will span April 15-21 with expanded exhibits and special events.
Rum Examiner:
http://www.examiner.com/article/2013-miami-rum-festival-details-announced

IN PROUSTIAN FASHION, Christmas is an olfactory as well as a culinary event. The smell of conifer resin, roasting poultry and, in the old days, cigars given to deserving dads, should always be complemented with the smell of brandies, rums and other rich and fine spirits wafting from puddings and snifters alike.

Good Christmas Spirits are not really for Scrooge. Prices for trophy booze of the kind you might use to show appreciation are soaring.

But seasonal spirits are forever. Recipients might look a gift bottle down the neck, but it is also supposed to sit in the cabinet exuding its trophy-hood and prestige, a monument to the exquisite taste and sensibilities of gifter and gifted alike.
RUM

The prize for prestige is Appleton’s timely 50-year-old rum (pictured left) , casked to mark Jamaica’s independence in 1962 and bottled this year to celebrate the anniversary. A mere 800 bottles are for sale – at a mere $5,000 each. Apart from the elegant crystal bottle it is smooth but bursting with a flavor and bouquet. And bound to be an investment if it stays unopened.

It’s not crystal, but the decanter on Pusser’s 15-year-old Navy Rum is porcelain engraved with scenes from Nelson’s famous victories to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Made in unique wooden pot-stills to the old Royal Navy formula, at $105 a bottle it is a bargain!
WHISKEY

The Macallan just broke the world’s price record at auction with its 64-year-old going for $460,000. But you can still make friends with a bottle of 25 year old (pictured left), which is a relative deal at less than $700. The Macallans of all ages are a joy to drink anyway.

But if you are not into single malts, you could always hit Johnnie Walker’s “Diamond Jubilee,” 60 bottles, sorry “editions,” of which sold for $160,000 earlier this year. Casked for the Coronation, the 60 year old Scotch is a jewel in itself, but its setting is a diamond-shaped Baccarat crystal decanter with 6 legs, for each decade of the reign. (pictured top)
COGNAC & ARMAGNAC

Weighing in at up to $4,000 a bottle, Courvoisier Succession J.S. (pictured left) is a limited edition, not least since the company no longer makes it. The IWSC calls it, “Rich, deep and uplifting,” and “A very well looked after cognac,” blended for the bi-centenary of Napoleon’s coronation, the bottle comes in a handmade, wooden replica of his war chest.

Almost a bargain is a bottle of 1952 Armagnac Laubade, which allows owners to hold forth with sophistication on the “other” French brandy, which will cost a mere $800 or so – but with three score years and ten on the big label, who looks at the price tag

TEQUILA

Agave spirit futures look good with even premium Mezcals becoming collectors items. But crafted for the gift market, Gran Patrón Burdeos Tequila (pictured left) looks the part with its tasteful bottle and elegant contents, which will cost over $400. Too good to waste in a margarita, this is for swirling, savoring – and showing off! -IW
MoS ARCHIVES

The IWSC Group, the world leading event company specializing in wines and spirits has launched the Spirits of the Americas, an exciting new spirits competition based in Florida.

Catering to all spirits produced in North, Central and South American countries and the Caribbean, the competition is set to be the ultimate recognition of distilled products that use a variety of base materials from grain through agave to sugar cane and beyond.

IWSC Group Managing Director, Allen Gibbons comments: “We believe launching Spirits of the Americas will highlight the huge variety and quality of products produced across the Americas. We are excited to have an event that highlights the excitement and diversity of the region”.

Dori Bryant, IWSC Group Event Director commented: “the Americas have always had traditionally strong regional spirits whether it is the rums of the Caribbean, the tequilas of Mexico or the bourbons of Kentucky. However recent years have seen spirits being produced in the most surprising of places such as vodka from Maine and Argentina, gin from San Francisco and absinthe from Philadelphia.”

Products will be judged on a 100-point basis, concentrating on appearance, aromatics, flavor, mouth feel and finish. Each entry will be evaluated, [on its own merit] by a panel of highly qualified judges through a series of blind-tastings, ensuring impartial judgment of the spirits. All judging at the Spirits of the Americas is by region, area, variety, style, type, vintage and age.

Hosting the judging is Jack Robertiello, an expert in the fields of spirits and mixology, who commented: “the Americas are home to a great range of wonderful distillers, old and new, and I am thrilled to be a part of the recognition of that talent”.

Other judges include Robert Plotkin of Bar Media, Pat McCarthy of Bayway World of Liquors who each have 30 years plus experience in the spirits industry. Starwood Hotels N.A. Food & Beverage Director Thomas ‘Mac’ McFarland Gregory III, author along with award-winning sommelier Olie Berlic and Dean Hurst, Director of Sprits, Bern’s Steak House also join the judging team.

My apologies to readers and visitors. I have been working on a book on Tequila, travelling, and suffering from a heart condition, but am now back in business. And this shows some of what I have been working on.

PERHAPS THE BEST PLACE TO START IS WITH THE DISTINCTIVELY RUGGED BOTTLE OF PATRÓN, which pioneered taking tequila upmarket. Made, of course, in Mexico, the company that owns it is registered in Switzerland and COO John McDonnell says, “If the tequila is no good, then no amount of packaging and marketing can make it up – and ours is fantastic. We only use the best agaves, we cook them in clay ovens for 72 hours; we use a tahona wheel along with a roller mill.”

Harvesting the Blue Agave “pina”

Patrón’s expansion was based on its existing customer base being affluent travelers, and, says McDonnell: “When they fly into major cities globally and can’t find Patrón, they might try something else and then we could end up losing them, so we made sure that Patrón was available at all the high-end restaurants, bars and hotels.” And of course, the locals have been getting the hint of “agavaciousness” as well expanding sales. For example affluent Russian women in particular are taking to tequila on a huge scale.

Premium is as premium does. Over the last decade, tequileros have refined their art to give premium tequilas the smoothly assured maturity of cask aged malts and cognacs without masking the subtle vegetal and spicy undertones that make the spirit of Mexico what it is. As with all luxury items, hands-on work and attention to details make the difference – which is reflected in the prices and sales of the premium tequilas that soared

Readying the pina for roasting

worldwide during the Crash.

The premium tequila makers point out that for tequila distillation – the genesis for most spirits – is merely the culmination of an eight-year process where they have planted and nurtured the long-lived agave pinas to maturity.

Each maker swears by their own methods: the pinas are cut to different leaf stub lengths, cooked in different types of ovens, and then while some use the traditional tahona, the stone mill to grind the Agave, others put them through a grinder. Each swears by their own choice of yeast, some like Olmeca, using local culture they have selected, while Herradura claims to use natural yeast from the air around the courtly tree-shaded hacienda nestling at the core of their modern plant.

Tequila aging in Oak Barrels

Each bottle has the number of the distillery in which it is made and by international treaty tequila can be made only in Mexico, using only one species of agave grown in a designated area, like champagne or cognac. In fact, tequila is protected in the US as well, unlike champagne!

Casa Noble’s Jose “Pepe” Hermosilla joined with several local families and between them they took 20 years from buying the fields to bringing the product to market, earning the strictest all-organic certification. “We grow our agave in the mountains, to stress them, and they take ten years to be ready.” They experimented with different woods for aging before settling on French oak in which Casa Noble’s latest offering is aged five years, which, Hermosillo points out, represents the equivalent of 15 years in other products. He considers its price of $130 a bottle to be very reasonable with all that care and capital invested in it – and hid appreciation is shared by superstar Carlos Santana who has bought into the company.

Ian WIlliams nosing a blanco

Hermosillo relishes “how many different notes and aromas it can have, based on the different contributions of the terroir where the agave is produced.” Casa Noble has, he says, “complex fruit notes, spices, white pepper, peppermint.”

But while, impelled by the success (and added value) of oak aged spirits, the tequileros point out, and many connoisseurs agree, that the rigorous attention to detail produces excellent white tequilas.

Also advancing rapidly on the luxury front is tequila’s stepbrother, Mezcal which now has its own marque. Artisinal mezcals each made and bottled in different Zapotec villages Oaxaca like Del Maguey Single Village Mezcals, which won Distiller of the Year Award at the San Francisco Spirits Festival last year, or the varietals made from different types of agave and aged for up to seven years by Scorpion are also claiming big prices from aficionados.

There’s liquid gold and silver in them thar’ hills down south of the border. IW